3/28/2013

Police and crime in Chicago: The ups and downs in Chicago's crime rates

Rahm Emanuel campaigned for Chicago mayor on a promise of putting 1,000 more police officers on the city's streets. Now, the man Emanuel picked to be the top cop for the nation's third-largest city says the mayor has told him to slash $190 million from his budget – something people both inside and outside the department say can't be done without layoffs.It would also likely be the largest cut for any police department in the U.S. during the nation's fiscal crisis."I don't see how you're going to (avoid layoffs)," said Robert Weisskopf, the president of the Chicago police lieutenants union. "They've already laid off civilian employees, laid off everybody they can and now we're to the point where watch secretaries (sworn officers) are going out to buy office supplies." . . . .

First Mayor Rahm Emanuel cuts the number of police officers. Here is data from the FBI's UCR:

The sweeping consolidation plan that he announced in March 2012 eliminated three of Chicago’s 25 police districts, closed two of its five detective headquarters (Area 4, which spanned the Near West Side and included downtown, and Area 5, which stretched from the Far Northwest Side to the Far Southwest Side), and transferred 300-plus detectives to other bureaus. The changes would save as much as $12 million, McCarthy said.

Unfortunately, the consolidation heaped still more pressure on homicide detectives, who were already struggling to keep up with bigger caseloads. Except for those detectives working in Area South (the police territory that covers roughly the southern third of the city), the realignment (and subsequent renaming) nearly doubled the area that many of them have to cover (see “Going the Distance,” right).

There are two big drawbacks here. One is that more detectives are working in neighborhoods they’re not yet familiar with. “All the expertise you once had is useless when you’re working on the other side of town,” says a detective from Area Central. “You might as well put me in a new city.”

Another big drawback to consolidation is that detectives find themselves farther away from crime scenes, sometimes by a dozen or more miles. Getting to the scene fast is crucial in any homicide investigation: Witnesses may scatter or fall victim to gang intimidation. Evidence may get trampled, tampered with, or blown away. Distance continues to be a problem later, when detectives must conduct follow-up interviews or track new witnesses in other parts of town. Says a former police official: “For every hour the detective spends in the car, that’s all time lost to the investigation.” . . . .

Street officers have also informed me that reassignment of officers has paralleled these changes for detectives. As with detectives, moving officers to less familiar areas loses valuable experience.
Now note the incredibly low clearance rate in 2012 for these high crime areas. The Chicago Magazine story makes it clear that while murder clearance rates fell city wide under Emanuel, the drops were particularly large in the most violent neighborhoods where the police were being moved out of.

The officers, who had been performing administrative duties will be replaced by civilians, according to an announcement from the mayor’s office. The first officers will be reassigned this weekend and the changes are expected to be completed by the end of March, city officials said. . . .